Roger Taylor - Farnor

‘But…’

‘But nothing. You saw him. Somehow, he’s in charge there now,’ Gryss said, without turning from his examination of Farnor. ‘And don’t ask me how any of it’s come about, or how he made those flames. It was no conjurer’s trickery for sure. I can feel the heat of them still.’ He shuddered. ‘And that terrible colour as they faded…’

‘And the noise,’ Harlen added.

Gryss nodded. ‘From what he said, I suspect he only learned to make those flames yesterday at…’ He hesitated and looked at Farnor unhappily. ‘At Farnor’s farm.’

Yakob had been pacing up and down, his face dark and frowning, but the reference to Farnor’s personal tragedy made him stop and grimace in self-reproach. ‘I‘m sorry, Farnor,’ he said. ‘It’s just that… what happened up there frightened me so much it made me forget you’re the only one who’s really been hurt.’

Farnor was in no mood for such solicitude however. ‘What did happen?’ he demanded. ‘And why are we running away from that murderous dog? I want him…’ He cried out and pushed Gryss away roughly. ‘Watch what you’re doing, you idiot. That hurt.’

Gryss regained his balance, then his hand shot out and slapped Farnor across his already bruised face. ‘And you watch your lip, young Farnor. You nearly got yourself killed, barging in there like that. Not to mention the rest of us for following you.’

‘I never asked you…’ Farnor began.

‘Enough!’ Gryss thundered.

Then he abandoned his examination and sat down by his patient, his head in his hands.

No one spoke.

A small bird fluttered to the ground nearby, studied the motionless quartet with a cold yellow eye for a moment and then flew off again.

The rapid pulse of its beating wings made Gryss look up.

‘Come on,’ he said, turning back to Farnor and put-ting a hesitant hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ve been badly knocked about, and we’ve all been badly frightened. Let me see if there’s anything that needs immediate attention and then we’ll go back to my cottage.’ He looked round at Harlen and Yakob. ‘Perhaps before we get there one of us can think of how we’re going to break the news to the rest of the village.’

Rannick rode slowly through the woods. Outwardly he was icily calm, but inwardly his mood oscillated between craven fear and blinding fury; fear that forces were arising that could oppose him in the fulfilment of his destiny, and fury that he could not identify the source of this opposition.

The demonstration of his new-found powers had seemingly been successful. Certainly it had impressed the men, and it had brought that old fool Gryss and the others literally to their knees. That at least was some consolation. He had been right, and Nilsson wrong. All the villagers needed was a display of power and they would present no future problems. Diplomacy and goodwill were items he might choose to use later as his domain spread, but for now why squander them?

But this was trivial. He snatched his mind back to his main concern. His demonstration had been, in reality, a disaster. He rubbed his arm where Katrin had stabbed him. It had been a savage gash, long and deep, but if he rolled up his sleeve he would see now only a thin, well-healed scar. Since his contact with the creature and the knowledge he had gained thereby, his healing skills had developed incredibly. But he would willingly have given his entire arm for the truth that had been revealed to him as a result of Katrin’s fearsome attack.

Revealed then, and made manifest by the destruc-tion of the Yarrance farmhouse and revealed further in the darkness into which he had entered afterwards. The darkness of the strange and secret journey that the spirit of the creature had carried him on, taking him to the places between and beyond the worlds where the power was to be found.

Such knowledge!

His hands tightened about the reins of his horse as he recaptured the ecstasy of his discovery; of the vistas opening before him.

And now…

His rapture became a hollow, ringing mockery.

Now, when the golden road of his destiny was grow-ing ever wider and easier he was opposed.

He opened his mouth and shouted a cry of fury and hatred at the silent will that had come from nowhere and laid its dead hand across the way through which the power came; had unmade that which he had made and taken the great power from him, leaving him only the power of this world.

Birds rose noisily into the air and his horse pranced its forelegs. Rannick reached out and silenced it. The power of this world was sufficient for most things. But…

He reined the horse to a halt. The memory of that other presence loomed dark and ominous in his mind, dominating his every thought, an unexpected shadow across his future. And yet, for all its effectiveness in denying him the power, it had been hesitant, unsure; fearful, almost.

In fact fearful, definitely, he decided.

He clenched his fists. He would not be defied thus! Least of all by some craven interferer. Excuses began to pour into his thoughts. The opposition had taken him unawares, he had been unprepared. It would not happen again, he would be ready for it; he would destroy it if it came again.

But the doubt that permeated his inner ranting enraged him further. Could he risk such another confrontation? Who could say what this other power could do, or from whence it came? He needed to know much more about it.

He knew that the creature, too, had felt it, and felt it powerfully. Yet the very howling of its anger and defiance across the valley heightened the wavering uncertainty that, for the first time, he had sensed in his savage companion.

And it had recognized that which had opposed them! It had known such a power before and feared it. The memory of the creature’s doubt mingled with his own to bring his thoughts to their inexorable conclu-sion; the source of this opposition must be found and destroyed.

He slipped down from his horse and released it. It moved away from him, but it needed no tether to prevent it from wandering for it had been schooled in the consequences of any form of disobedience to its new master. Rannick nodded to himself. He knew now why he had ridden out from the castle after Gryss and the others had left. He had to commune with his dark ally. Had to be close to it. Somewhere silent and away from the oppressive presence of Nilsson and his wretched band.

Together he and the creature must travel the ways between the worlds until the creature scented the source of the power and he, Rannick, identified the will behind it. For it was someone he knew, he was sure. There had been a familiarity about it that kept returning to him, dancing tantalizingly in and out of his awareness.

But who?

He motioned the horse further away. He needed to be free from its swamping animal fears, needed to touch the ground, to be aware of everything about him so that he could be aware of himself and bring a quietness to his thinking.

He began to walk through the trees. His horse fol-lowed him reluctantly, keeping a considerable distance behind him.

Was it one of Nilsson’s men? It could have been, Rannick supposed. His acceptance by them was not as complete as they pretended. Some were wholeheartedly his, their lustful greed leaking from them like a rich incense. But others paid only a dutiful obeisance, shot through with fear and doubt.

But these were of no import; lesser spirits, dispen-sable should need arise.

The familiarity that he had sensed in the power that had thwarted him returned briefly, flitting nervously at the edge of his consciousness. But it defied examination, vanishing when he turned to confront it.

Frustration and anger rose to cloud his mind for some time. As it gradually waned, he dismissed Nilsson’s men. The familiarity had stirred vague images of times long before the arrival of the troop, and, apart from that, any difficulties with Nilsson’s men would have shown themselves by now.